Online transactions have become a daily occurrence for many people and have also created opportunities for new online services and accounts. For example, it is now common for a consumer to browse online product and service offerings, select, place an order, and pay for a product and/or a service in a transaction that is substantially all online. However, online transactions may be vulnerable to security breaches and various forms of fraud.
In particular, one of the problems with a typical online transaction is that it circumvents signature and identification verification protocols that are available during an in-person transaction. For example, during a typical online transaction, a merchant provides an order form that requires a consumer to enter personal data such a name, a billing address, a telephone number, and credit card information. The consumer enters and sends the data requested by the form over the internet, and the merchant verifies that the credit card information is valid and that the card can be charged the payment amount. The card verification is usually conducted over a proprietary billing center verification network, such as the VisaNet network. However, the personal data and the credit card information provided by the consumer may have been acquired illicitly by the alleged consumer. Neither the merchant nor the billing center is able to reliably verify that the individual providing the personal data and credit card information is the true authorized user of the credit card.
By contrast, during an in-store transaction, a sales clerk can request a signed picture identification in order to verify that the person tendering the credit card is the true authorized user of the credit card. The sale clerk can then compare the signatures on the credit card and the sales slip against the signature on the picture identification, and also verify that the consumer is the same person shown on the picture identification. Moreover, the possibility that picture identification may be requested serves as a potential deterrent against using an illicitly acquired payment instrument during an in-store transaction.
Similarly, merchants and/or service providers offering age-restricted and/or region restricted products and/or services (e.g. alcohol and online gambling) have no way to reliably verify that a user is who he/she purports to be and/or is of the age he/she purports to be. Conventionally, a user simply enters a birth date into an online form. In turn, the online merchant and/or service provider merely checks that the birth date offered by the user indicates that the user is of age to receive and/or view the age-restricted products and/or services. The online merchant and/or service provider is unable to reliably verify that the user has provided his/her actual birth date or other personal data. In other words, the online merchant and/or service provider must trust the integrity of the user without being able to verify the data provided by the user.